Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • adjective Made or carried out in good faith; sincere.
  • adjective Authentic; genuine: synonym: authentic.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun In or with good faith; without fraud or deception; with sincerity; genuinely: frequently used as a compound adjective in the sense of honest; genuine; not make-believe.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • In or with good faith; without fraud or deceit; real or really; actual or actually; genuine or genuinely.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adjective In good faith.
  • adjective Genuine; not counterfeit.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • adjective not counterfeit or copied
  • adjective undertaken in good faith

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Latin bonā fidē : bonā, feminine ablative of bonus, good + fidē, ablative of fidēs, faith.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From the Latin bonā fidē (“in good faith”) which is the ablative of bona fidēs (“good faith”).

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Examples

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Comments

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  • good dog.

    July 14, 2008

  • The plural of "bona fide" (fem. ablative case of a 5th declension noun), which literally means "with good faith," is "bonis fidebus" (cf. bona fides).

    December 4, 2011